Why Robocalls Are Almost Impossible to Stop | WSJ

Americans have received billions of robocalls and shelled out untold sums to scammers pretending to be IRS representatives, health-care providers, government officials and others. But so far, lawmakers have had a hard time making robocalls stop. WSJ's Spencer Macnaughton explains why. Photo: Rob Alcaraz/The Wall Street Journal

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#WSJ #Robocalls

[arain]

We need to start a massive Robo Calling program aimed at our elected officials their family members and assistants. Once it starts to effect them then you will see some will to do something about it.

[edwardtsema]

Ring ring ring... Me: "Hello." Robocall: "Do not hang up. Your card warra" (Hang up).

[joshn]

I had this problem with 20+ robocalls/scammers per day calling me. After looking online, I noticed there wasn't any solutions and AT&T's suggested solutions did not work AT ALL. So I decided to see if I could figure out how to solve it and I did. What I did was I created a "smart" land line phone which has several advanced features in it. First, the phone has two options: known phone numbers and unknown phone numbers. Known phone numbers are numbers you select as being "safe" from friends, family, work, doctor etc. When these phone numbers call, the call is directed through and the phone rings as normal. For unknown phone numbers the phone does not ring at all. Instead the caller is immediately redirected to voice mail. If the person decides to leave a voice mail then the voice mail is transcribed to text and sent to your e-mail. This completely solved my robocall problem! Most never even bother to leave a voice mail. For the ones that do leave voicemail, it is an easy task to see these messages in your e-mail and delete them! I've always wondered if other people would buy this type of phone if I tried to commercialize it but figured no one would.

[thatoneguy]

I don't care anymore about what they want. I just DON'T WANT THE CALLS TO DISTRACT ME WHILE IM DOING SOMETHING!! Oh so annoying.

[meheretoday]

I got one yesterday....we get them all the time... I simply lay the phone on the bench near me and let them talk... sooner or later they realise there is no one listening and hang up... my time is too important to waste on them, but if they want to spend their time talking to empty air, who am I to stop them...

[DVZM.]

I'm from Austria, Europe and have never heared about "Robot-Calls". Did not even know that it existed, it does not exist here.

[xinfuxia]

If spoof calls are stopped, it can remove the most sinister robocalls. The traceable robocalls are much easier to block.
It’s not that hard to stop spoofing. The SSL/TLS protocols and PKI infrastructure of the internet were created exactly for anti-spoofing purpose. Those protocols have worked for decades.

[angelamurry]

It is hard to stop because legit companies that we use in the US sell our numbers to make money. Ex. Credit card companies, utilities companies and even phone companies.

[tonyk]

1. Make phone manufacturers have the default settings for new phones be to block calls from people who aren't in the person's contact list.
2. Make phone companies allow arbitrarily complex phone strings that can be reset as easily as passwords, and allow individuals to register multiple such phone strings in their account so that they can create rules to handle calls to different strings that they own.

Basically, phone numbers should operate the exact same as DNS records, and people should be able to configure their own DNS records and firewalls to their heart's content.

[deep.space.]

26B calls and US$9B lost. Make the minimum charge of calls from abroad US$0.35, then no more scammers because no profit.

[adiposerex]

As long as ATT makes money, it will never stop.

[nobodyfromohio]

I get them non stop. I take the time to act interested and then I start insulting them. If they don’t stop at least I can annoy them a little.

[STubes]

They're obviously not going to stop if people keep giving them money.

[michaelpayton]

Set my phone to only ring if the number is in my address book. Not even robotexts get thru.

[NathansVideos]

I downloaded a call blocker app and the number of calls increased. I felt like the app sold my number then blocked the calls

[macbuff]

it's not impossible. Here in Germany unsolicited calls are banned by law. It works irregardless of whether they originate from a landline or mobile callers

[bruhdabones]

Pro Tip: if you don’t recognize the number, answer and DONT SAY ANYTHING. Most robocall systems cannot recognize when the other end has picked up. Instead, they wait for “Hello?” or general noise. If it’s truly a human calling you, they will say something.

[MrBread]

it is possible, but your government does not do anything to outlaw it.

[TrainerAQ]

My favorite is the call informing me I haven't made my payments to my Chevy. I have never owned a Chevy.

[eaminyashed]

I used to get robocalls but I started making a game of seeing how long I could keep these guys on the phone by making small chat, pretending I couldn’t understand even asking the scammer to hold. Now I’m off their lists.